Rape suspect has twisted history

Suspect in brutal attack has had a complex upbringing, life

DAYELIN ROMAN Staff write, Times Union

By DAYELIN ROMAN Staff writer

Updated 12:07 am, Thursday, June 23, 2011

When Adam Croote was 7 in 1996, he and his paternal grandmother Linda Koerner were invited to the White House as President Clinton signed a memorandum requiring missing children posters be hung in all federal buildings. The boy's photo was taken with Clinton and other families involved in missing persons cases. (Associated Press archives)

When Adam Croote was 7 in 1996, he and his paternal grandmother...

This 1995 file photo shows Linda Koerner and her grandson Adam Croote after they were reunited. The boy was returned to his paternal grandmother's care after he was abducted and kept from her for three years. (Times Union archive)

This 1995 file photo shows Linda Koerner and her grandson Adam...

Adam M. Croote, 23, of Rock Hill Road, New Scotland, is accused of rape and attempted murder after a sexual assault of a 10-year-old girl, police said. (Albany County sheriff's department photo)

The 23-year-old New Scotland man who was charged with brutally raping and attempting to kill a 10-year-old girl he was supposed to be baby-sitting Monday has been a focus of news reports since he was 2. That's when his father shot the toddler's pregnant mother in the head twice and left home for the next four hours, leaving Croote alone with his dead mother.

Croote's life has taken a series of bizarre turns, including being abducted by a grandmother, being found after a school staffer in Kansas saw his face on a flier, and then meeting President Bill Clinton in the White House -- all before he was 7.

And by 17, Croote had made the rounds through a series of group homes and sexually assaulted a staff member at one school while she drove a van, which he then crashed into a wall.

Croote declined an interview request through the Albany County Sheriff's Office. According to Times Union archives, Croote's father killed his mother in 1990 after she confessed to being in love with her father-in-law. She was pregnant with a boy who would have been named David. On Wednesday, a relative of Croote's paternal stepgrandfather, who asked not to be identified, said 24-year-old Wendy Croote was possibly pregnant with her father-in-law's child.

Michael Croote, Adam Croote's father, is serving a life sentence for the crime in Georgia. The family was living in a trailer home in Hinesville, Ga., after Michael Croote was stationed at the Fort Stewart Army base.

After his father's imprisonment and his mother's death, Adam Croote's custody became the subject of a battle between grandmothers in Westerlo and the Franklin County hamlet of Owl's Head that ended with FBI involvement. Linda Koerner, his paternal grandmother, was granted temporary custody in 1990 and was fighting Margaret Zibura, Adam Croote's maternal grandmother, for full custody.

According to a 1995 report in the Altamont Enterprise, custody was awarded to Koerner after a judge heard evidence that Margaret and her husband, Frank Zibura, left the state in the 1970s with Margaret Zibura's daughters to escape a custody battle with the girls' biological father. While away, the report said, one of the girls, Wendy -- Adam's mother -- was sexually abused by her stepfather.

In 1992, during an unsupervised visit with then-3-year-old Croote, the Ziburas abducted him, setting off a nationwide search that ended in 1995 after a school staffer recognized his picture on a flier and called authorities.

The couple, who had changed their names and Adam's identity and pretended they were his parents, were found by the FBI and were brought back to New York to face charges. They eventually pleaded guilty and were sentenced to time served and five years of probation and fined $5,000 each.

The Ziburas argued that they took the boy to Kansas out of love. Frank Zibura said he believed custody of the boy should have been awarded to them because Koerner "raised one son and he turned out to be a murderer. She doesn't deserve to raise another," according to Times Union archives.

When Adam Croote was 7 in 1996, he and Koerner were invited to the White House as President Clinton signed a memorandum requiring missing children posters be hung in all federal buildings. The boy's photo was taken with Clinton and other families involved in missing persons cases.

But as Croote tried to live a normal life, the relative of his paternal stepgrandfather said issues were developing, and when the boys lived together for two years, Croote's problems prevented them from being close.

"It definitely started with the fact that his mother was shot by his father," the man said. "I don't think it's any type of excuse, but it's where it stemmed from."

When Croote was 13, he was sent to group homes and went to residential schools in Vermont, Massachusetts and in the South until he was 21, when he was released and sent back to New York.

At 17 in Wendell, Mass., he sexually assaulted a woman who worked at a residential school for sexually abusive youths while she was driving him to school from a doctor's appointment, according to a Worcester Telegram & Gazette report from 2005. He then grabbed the wheel of the van and turned it toward a stone wall, causing a crash, and ran away until a police dog found him.

After the incident, Croote was convicted of forcible sexual contact and was labeled a Level 2 sex offender.

On Monday, Croote was arrested on the most serious charges yet after police said he brutally raped and tried to kill a 10-year-old he was supposed to be watching.

The child's family was in a pinch for a baby-sitter, and Croote said he could watch the girl for a few minutes. Croote previously knew the family, Undersheriff Craig Apple said, but had not watched the girl before.

Croote got the girl off the bus about 3:30 p.m. and took her inside her home, where they began to set up a video game system. The girl went into the kitchen to get a snack, and when she returned, Croote was naked and masturbating, the undersheriff said, when he raped the girl.

When the girl screamed, he choked her. He also tried to strangle and snap her neck twice, Apple said, before getting up and running away from the home. Croote was charged Monday with attempted second-degree murder, first-degree rape, first-degree criminal sexual act, first-degree sexual abuse, forcible touching and criminal obstruction of breathing.

The relative of Croote's paternal stepgrandfather said it's "absolutely ridiculous" that a man with Adam Croote's history is allowed to roam free, even though he is only 23.

"He should have been locked up earlier," the man said. "There's no way of rehabilitating him. If anything, he's just progressively gotten worse."